Originally Posted by aosaif
Stadiums look fairly empty unless home teams are playing. Would a game like NZ vs AUS have pulled a bigger crowd if it was played in Bangladesh?

Having the most number of games in India is fine due to the fact that they have so many International stadiums, but I see no point in giving so many games to Srilanka! ICC could have easily given a lot more games to us, and I'm sure the turnover of the people here would have been much bigger! Srilanka has always been a boring place for cricket, and undoubtedly it has the least passionate crowd among the sub-continent countries!

Many of us have made this match more than what it needs to be. This is a game that Bangladesh has to win,, so is the match against the West Indies or England or South Africa along with Netherlands..

If we are thinking this hard to win a match against Ireland then we have stopped "Believing".. A team that is thinking of Quarter-Finals or Semi-Finals cannot be this much worried about winning aginst a semi-professional side,, that too when the home team is playing in Mirpur with the home crowd and the other team's first World Cup match!!

We will win this match. Bangladesh is not that Bangladesh where the wickets will fall one after another and we fold in 180 runs or let Irish score 290 runs.. Those days long left when Al -Shahrier, Durjoy, Jahangir Alam, Mridul was no longer part of the team..The team is not complacent but with 7 batsman, 4 spinners, Irish/West Indies/English/Dutch team will not have it easy to win against Bangladesh side and 3 of them will likely to lose.India and South Africa are different because they know spin too well..

So, Unless the God of cricket is wearing a gree to shower the luck of the Irish I say,, how big do Bangladesh want to win today??

Originally Posted by dhakablues
we will win this match. Bangladesh is not that bangladesh where the wickets will fall one after another and we fold in 180 runs or let irish score 290 runs.. Those days long left when al -shahrier, durjoy, jahangir alam, mridul was no longer part of the team..the team is not complacent but with 7 batsman, 4 spinners, irish/west indies/english/dutch team will not have it easy to win against bangladesh side and 3 of them will likely to lose.india and south africa are different because they know spin too well..

So, unless the god of cricket is wearing a gree to shower the luck of the irish i say,, how big do bangladesh want to win today??

Aminul Islam said, We should bat first and the dew factor won't be a problem. He is not sure about the role of Rakibul. When the opener's are doing good Shakib comes in at 4 to keep up the good work and when the openers failed Mushfiq comes for settle things down. So Rakibul doesn't fit anyways.

Faruk said, Tamim needs to blast through his innings as his demolishing batting would break the Irish heart. He was also delighted to see the way Tamim batted in the last match with much responsibility and seance.

They both agreed that Ash should play at no. 7 to use the powerplay and increase the RR at point of time.

Shujon with so called great cricket brain (tagged by our local Bangla newspaper) said Ash should bat at no. 4. He deserves that spot no matter what happen.

Khaled Masud said we should be mentally prepared that in any match we would have to chase target of 270 and around. So we should have batters who can score 6 out of 6 balls at the lower part of batting line up. So he think Ash and SN would be the better solution than Rakibul.

Mr. Ishtiak former national player and cricket administrator said he is more looking forward to see Sohrawardi to see against the teams like Ireland.

All the ex players were concerned about the strategy of the Tigers to use the batting powerplay. They think alike us that the team management is not using it properly.

I agree Boka. Durjoy, Rokon did whatever they could with their limitations.It was not a disrespect What I meant to say was that the new breed of cricketers know more wins than more losses..This same team has won against all the ODI teams in the world and never looks back.. Back in the days, we never won against any teams than Hong Kong, Singapore and used to even lost against Papua New Guinea, Netherlands and Maurice Odumbe was Virendar Shevagh for us!! That was day before yesterday and the fear of losing..well it is non-existent!!

I feel that Junaid is a better player of quality pace bowling compared to Nafees... and Nafees is a much better player of spin than Junaid... so we could select Junaid at 3 so that he can handle the fast bowlers should a wicket fall early and Nafees at 4 so that he can come in and be comfortable against the spinners during middle overs...